


Child of Light

by Tinyshot



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinyshot/pseuds/Tinyshot
Summary: As she meets the Crow, old wounds are opened.
Relationships: Cayde-6/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Child of Light

It cannot be.

He’s here. Living, breathing, talking. His ghost is soft-spoken and gentle, pink and fluttering all the time.

His ghost.

His ghost…

Tears well up in her eyes. Pain rips right through her heart, a deep ache and longing, throbbing, stabbing. Sagira. Sagira… Sagira was _her_ ghost too.

She felt it, when she was gone. A piece of her soul sung high-pitched and tragic, like a crystal glass on contact with the floor, and shattered into a million pieces. She didn’t know why or what it was, only that something went terribly wrong. Something she couldn’t fix.

How come Sagira had to die, but this… this man, this… this _mistake_ gets to live? Come back as a _Guardian_?

She could see it all over again. Sundance, bright and cheerful and brazen, just like Cayde himself, shot to pieces. Cayde…

She catches herself just in time. That memory is getting shoved deep down, not now, not now...

She is glad that her helmet covers her face. The mask of shock and horror contorting her face is unseemly.

The weight of Ace of Spades in her normally steady hand is too poignant. Too real. She grips it hard to stop the trembling.

In a system so vast and various, there is surprisingly little space for privacy. She runs and runs and runs until she finds herself in a tiny alcove in the frozen wastelands of Europa. Just large enough to hide, with blizzard howling around her muffling any sounds. At last, she is alone.

She sits heavily on the hidden trove chest someone left in this little space, her legs refusing to serve her any longer.

She had excused herself to go and charge the lure. The Crow had nodded in understanding and left her be. She didn’t speak, letting her Ghost speak for her, as is tradition. He had more control of his voice. Her rage and grief and pain might have broken through had she opened her mouth. She hoped that Crow would think her restrained rather than rude. She couldn’t...

And solidly in no help column was the damn Spider. Taunting her. Making remarks about knowing how good she is in exacting vengeance, right to her face, right to oblivious Crow’s face.

She wants to howl with the wind.

“This isn’t fair,” she whispers, her voice almost entirely drowned out by the storm outside, “this isn’t fair…”

Her Ghost gently bumps into her helmet.

“I know. But it is what it is. He is not him now. He is Crow. A new guardian. He doesn’t know. He shouldn’t be judged…”

“I know! But still…” her voice breaks, and she slumps over, hugging herself tightly. “He didn’t deserve it… I thought the Traveler only awoke the worthy…”

“Hah!” her Ghost hovers in front of her, clicking gently, “do you really believe that?”

“What?...”

“Yeah, that’s what it’s supposed to be, but I don’t think that’s true at all,” he rolls his eye, “sometimes I forget what a child you still are.”

“Get to the point,” she grumbles through the teeth. She has no patience for his chatter at the moment, and he senses it, finally.

“Do you really think that the Traveler cares that much about the moral qualities of a dead person? I think he gives Light to those who are meant to do something in this world. I mean, remember Dredgen Yor?”

She nods, quiet. The Thorn is locked away in the Tower’s vault, and still remembers the chill she got when touching that foul weapon.

“One might argue his purpose was to create Shin Malphur. And Drifter? You think the Traveler didn’t expect the Drifter to reject him? In defying the Traveler I think Drifter was doing what he was meant to do. And I mean, where would we be without him now? Perhaps his goal was to tame the Stasis, just like you, and show you the way.”

She is slowly rocking on the box, back and forth, back and forth.

“And the Crow will have a purpose as well. You’ll see.”

“Uldren has taken Cayde from us. Our Vanguard. Our friend. Do I need to tell you how hard has it been for us, for all Hunters? Without a leader, without an advocate. Ikora and Zavala can try, but they don’t understand us. They can’t. Cayde…” her breath hitches, and she swallows hard, “Cayde was… Cayde was…”

“Cayde?” her Ghost suggests, and she can hear a gentle smile in his voice.

“Yeah. He was Cayde. We never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell him… tell him how I really felt.”

Her Ghost stares at her in shock, so intently she can feel it without looking at him. She never admitted that before, to anyone.

“I see now. Why you were just… burning with the need for vengeance. Why you took Cayde’s death so hard.”

“Seeing him die in my arms… it was… unbearable. He was my Vanguard, my friend, and the man I loved. I think he knew that. He was just waiting to see if I ever got the courage to say it.”

She reaches for Ace with a familiar motion and runs her hand along the scuffed barrel.

“He thought I’d be the one to kill him.”

“I know,” Ghost bobs beside her shoulder, looking at the too-familiar hand cannon, “along with Ikora, Zavala, Eris, Petra and…”

“I know, I know,” she swats at him impatiently, “but still. He thought I _might_ be the one.”

She still stares at the gun. The pain she thought she had dealt with rises up again, crushing her from the inside out. She needs to focus. To be calm. Wall off that pain, ignore it. Not feeling. Not hurting. Like stone. Like _ice_. Her hands begin to crystallize.

“Careful,” her Ghost whispers, trembling, “don’t let the Darkness poison you.”

But it would be so easy to let go.

 _Let go_ , it whispers, gentle and soothing like a mother, _let go_.

Let go and rise, let go and fly to the Reef. Let go, and raid the Spider’s nest. Let go, and see that disgusting bug crushed beneath your heel.

Let go, and show to him just how good you are at exacting your revenge.

Let go… extinguish that new Light before it began. He didn’t deserve to have it, to live again, not when Cayde died by his hand.

_let_

_go  
_

The hammer clicks.

The sound is crisp and fresh, like a breath of mountain air.

_The Farm. Cayde is perched on a hole in the half-collapsed wall, slouched against the frame leisurely, effortlessly balancing on a narrow strip of metal. His silhouette is bathed in sunlight._

_“Yo.”_

_His head turns to her, and the light catches his cerulean chassis in a way that makes her squint. It’s blinding, warm and cool at the same time._

_“You ever figure procrastination is your brain’s way of stopping you from making a terrible mistake?.. Yeah, me too.”_

It’s so cold. She vaguely registers the ice seeping through her helmet. Closing over her face. It creeps over her cheeks, into her eyes. She is drowning in the ice.

_He looks at her, freezing in the warmth of the setting sun._

_“You’ve always been so competent. So diligent. So ready to do things the right way.”_

And look where it got me, she wants to snap back, but her lips are frozen shut. She wants to stop feeling, worrying, hurting. Ever since she tried to do things the right way and he died for it. But she can stop it. Stop everything, stop the world, freeze it in place. In total calm. Stasis. Then the pain will stop.

_“What I’m trying to say is… save you from yourself.”_

With effort, she blinks, her eyelashes frosted over. Her Ghost yelling her name, trying to get through the whirlwind of ice around her, barely staying afloat amid the raging storm.

She smothers it. The wind calms, and the stillness returns to the little alcove in a heartbeat, as if it had never happened. Stillness, but not stasis. Calm, but not a full stop. Only the soft tinkle of icicles falling away from her body let them know what happened.

“Are you… are you okay?” Her Ghost is shaking off the shards of ice stuck to his shell, “the Darkness… it nearly had you.”

“It’s only been a couple of days,” her voice is bitter, and she presses Ace to her chest, “only a couple of days, and I’ve walked up to the edge already. I… I can’t believe how weak I really am.”

“You are far from weak. It’s just… you couldn’t have predicted the Crow. It’s… trying time.”

“The Crow,” she whispers, still cradling Ace, “not Uldren. Uldren is dead. Uldren is dead. Uldren is dead…”

“You killed him. He is gone. Crow is not at fault for what his body had done. He is a newborn Lightbearer. A child.”

“Yes… but I still can’t look at him.”

“No, I didn’t think you could,” Ghost orbits around her, giving her gentle nudges, “don’t worry. I’ll speak for you. You just… hold on.”

Hold on. She grips the handle of her, of their weapon. The shakes are gone.

Just hold on.


End file.
